Some Americans have been persuaded by interest groups that there has been a “war on Christmas” in recent decades. They cite the court decisions saying that a crèche cannot be displayed by itself in a public courthouse and that public schools cannot sing Christmas carols without including other faiths’ holiday music. This unfortunate terminology is a result of a willful ignorance about what has made America great.
It is crucial to get one issue off the table. We are only talking about government support for Christian observance. No one, including the courts, has or can remove Christmas from the public square, let alone the private sphere. Department stores are decorated to the hilt, Christmas shopping is such a cultural force that many do it who don’t even believe in Jesus, and homes and businesses are lit up across the country. You can tune in radio stations that play Christmas carols 24 hours a day, and watch a steady stream of Christmas offerings on television. The music industry pumps out one Christmas album after another, and there is no law or regulation that forbids you from saying to any and all you see, “Merry Christmas,” and no limitation on the number of cards, tweets, or emails you send with Christmas greetings. Rockefeller Center in New York sports a huge tree with an annual tree-lighting ceremony. There is simply no deficit of Christmas in the vast majority of our culture.
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